More than 100 officers, the entire police force of the town of Linares, Mexico --75 miles (120 kilometers) southeast of the northern industrial city of Monterrey -- were herded into buses and driven to a nearby town, Linares Mayor Francisco Medina Quintanilla told Milenio Television on Sunday.

They are being held for investigation of possible corruption and ties to organized crime. Mexican soldiers and Nuevo Leon state police are patrolling instead.

The detention of more than 100 officers comes after a rise in kidnapping and extortion in the area. A series of investigations in other towns already has put hundreds of officers in custody.

The military action comes as Monterrey and the surrounding region have been the scene of an ongoing war between the Zetas and Golfo drug cartels.

It also follows a push to crackdown on corruption within local police forces. The Mexican Armed Forces or Federal police officers have been sent to several hotspots throughout Mexico to supplement often corrupt, intimidated or weakened local police.

In Ciudad Juárez, a border city where thousands of federal officers have been posted, the federal Attorney General's Office announced that 10 former federal officers had been arrested and ordered to stand trial on charges of extortion, abuse of authority and drug possession, among others.

Drug-gang related violence has claimed more than 40,000 lives in Mexico since December 2006, when the newly inaugurated Felipe Calderón declared war on drug traffickers.

Granny says hang him from the nearest bridge...Senior Zetas cartel boss under arrest, Mexico police sayFri, Oct 14, 2011 - Mexicos armed forces on Wednesday arrested a high-level Zetas drug cartel boss who was in charge of operations in three states along the US border and was a right-hand man of the cartel chief.

The military said the arrest of the suspect, whom it did not identify, was made in Saltillo, Coahuila State, as gang members unleashed a hail of gunfire in an apparent failed attempt to cover his escape. The suspect is considered the operational chief for the criminal operations of the Zetas criminal group in Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas states, the Ministry of Defense said in a statement. It said he was also a top lieutenant of cartel chief Heriberto Lazcano, in which case the arrest would be one of the largest blows ever dealt to the organization. The arrest followed running street battles involving troops, police and gang members in which a taxi driver was killed and eight other people were wounded, including three police, the Coahuila State Prosecutors Office said.

Authorities said the suspect was expected to be presented to the media yesterday. The arrest came the day after the US accused Iranian operatives of having tried to contact a Mexican drug cartel as part of a plot to kill the Saudi ambassador in Washington. Officials did not specify which of Mexicos powerful cartels was allegedly approached, but US media reported that it was the Zetas, a notorious drug cartel made up of former Mexican special forces. The Zetas have been accused of a string of killings, kidnappings and macabre displays of brutality that have made them one of the most feared gangs in Mexicos spiraling drug violence.

Set up in the 1990s by ex-elite soldiers turned hired killers, the Zetas are fighting their former allies the Gulf cartel and others. More than 45,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence since Mexico launched a massive military operation against the cartels in 2006 involving some 50,000 troops. Earlier on Wednesday, the navy said it had found the body of a man it described as the chief financial operator of the Gulf Cartel in Reynosa, Tamaulipas State, without saying who was behind the killing.

In a candid speech marking the start of his sixth and last year in the presidency (link in Spanish), Calderon said interference in elections by drug gangs "is a new fact, a worrisome fact." "It is a threat to everyone," he said.

He was apparently alluding to last month's local elections in Michoacan, Calderon's home state, where traffickers and their henchmen intimidated voters and told people whom to vote for. Those events have led to fears about further meddling in July's presidential vote.

Calderon defended his decision to deploy the military to fight the cartels and scolded "political forces" that don't have the "vision" to support the struggle. "This is a problem, friends, that has been developing for decades and that is showing us its true face, a face of violence, a face of evil," Calderon said. Violence and insecurity, he added, "are one of the greatest challenges Mexico has faced in modern history."

Since Calderon took office in December 2006, more than 40,000 people have been killed in fighting with and among drug gangs, and thousands of Mexicans have gone missing or been forced to flee hometowns.

Don't discount the Columbian cartels...Despite rise of Mexican cartels, Colombian traffickers still strong in Central AmericaDecember 9, 2011 - Although much has been made of Mexican cartels' spread into Central America, they have not supplanted Colombia-based drug traffickers, who are still highly active in the region.

The prevailing wisdom on the hemispheric drug trade is that Colombian traffickers have been eclipsed in Central America by the rise of their Mexican counterparts, but Colombian groups remain a significant force in the region. In recent years many analysts have emphasized the fact that Mexican cartels are increasing their influence in Central America, edging Colombian drug trafficking groups out of the isthmus. The influence of the Zetas has been especially well documented, with the Mexican drug gang dominating the regions headlines.

After the group massacred 27 farm workers in the Peten region in May, officials in El Salvador announced that the Mexican cartel had links to local traffickers, and Nicaraguan police declared in October that the Zetas were attempting to recruit members of the countrys security forces. But while the Zetas have been the most visible actors in what Guatemalan President Alvaro Colom has called an invasion of Mexican drug gangs, the phenomenon is not limited to the group. The Sinaloa, Tijuana, and Gulf cartels are also known to be deepening their ties in the region, although their incursion has attracted less attention.

Still, while it is true these organizations are spreading their tentacles into Central America, this trend tends to be exaggerated by analysts and the media alike. Colombia-based groups remain highly active in the region, using it as a base for drug shipments and money-laundering schemes. Just last week, Colombian authorities announced that they had broken up a laundering ring associated with Daniel Barrera Barrera, alias "El Loco," which had established several front companies in Honduras.

Mexico crackin' down on cartels, corrupt police..Mexican army kills 16 in anti-drug operations in two statesDec 22, 2011: Mexican army units clashed with suspected drug traffickers on Wednesday in Veracruz and Sinaloa states, killing a total of 16 people, the army said.

In Panuco, Veracruz state, eight suspected traffickers were killed in fighting with members of an army unit, army commander Carlos Aguilar said without adding further details. In another incident in the same state, two suspected traffickers were killed in a clash with the army in the town of Coatzintla, Aguilar added.

The federal government two months ago sent military and police reinforcements to Veraruz, on the Gulf of Mexico, which has been rocked by violence blamed on the Zetas cartel. The Zetas -- former hitmen for the Gulf cartel -- have spread fear with kidnappings and killings across Mexico and also in Guatemala in recent years.

In Sinaloa state on the Pacific coast, prosecutors said six suspected drug traffickers were killed in army and police operations in the towns of Guasave and Ahome. More than 45,000 people have been killed in growing drug-related violence in Mexico since December 2006, when the government launched a military-led crackdown on the country's powerful drug cartels.

Mexico disbands entire police force in top port city; Navy takes overWednesday, December 21,`11  The entire police force in the major Gulf coast port city of Veracruz was dissolved on Wednesday, and Mexican officials sent the Navy in to patrol.

The Veracruz state government said the decision is part of an effort to root out police corruption and start from zero in the states largest city. State spokeswoman Gina Dominguez said 800 police officers and 300 administrative employees were laid off. At a press conference, she said they can apply for jobs in a state police force, but must meet stricter standards for an agency with officers who are better trained and more committed and who can deliver under our current security circumstances.

Armed marines barricaded police headquarters Wednesday and Navy helicopters were flying above the city where 35 bodies were dumped in September. It was one of the worst gang attacks of Mexicos drug war. The change was agreed upon Monday by Veracruz Gov. Javier Duarte and federal Interior Secretary Alejandro Poire. Mexicos army has taken over police operations several times before, notably in the border city of Ciudad Juarez and the border state of Tamaulipas. But Veracruz becomes the first state to completely disband a large police department and use marines as law enforcers. There are about 2,400 marines in the state of Veracruz.

Dominguez said the Navy operations will last only until the state can train more of its own police. Duarte already had disbanded a police force in the states capital of Xalapa, but in that case state agents immediately replaced city police. President Felipe Calderon has pushed an ambitious process for vetting all of Mexicos 460,000 police officers. His administration allocated $331 million for 200 cities to train and re-equip municipal police forces. Governors have complained they lack the resources to ensure their police forces are clean.

Veracruz is a common route for drugs and migrants coming from the south. It was first dominated by the Gulf Cartel, and then its former armed wing, the Zetas, took over after the two split. The state saw a rise in crime this spring after a government offensive in neighboring Tamaulipas scared drug criminals away to Veracruz. But the dumping of the 35 bodies shocked Mexico as it turned the port into a battleground between the Zetas and a gang aligned with the Sinaloa Cartel, led by Joaquin El Chapo Guzman.

16 Killed In Veracruz Violence...16 killed in violence in Mexican stateDecember 23, 2011 = A group of five gunmen sprayed three passenger buses with bullets in Mexico's Gulf coast state of Veracruz on Thursday, killing seven passengers, before being chased down and killed by soldiers.

Veracruz state government spokeswoman Gina Dominguez said the gunmen apparently
resisted detention and died in the ensuing confrontation. They all had rifles and were traveling in a bulletproof vehicle. While the attackers' identities and cartel affiliation have not yet been established, the men killed match witness descriptions of the assailants in the bus attacks, Dominguez said. Earlier, gunmen killed four people in the town of El Higo in northern Veracruz, where drug gangs have been particularly active, but Dominguez said those killings appear not to have been related to the bus attacks.

The bloody pre-Christmas bus shootings brought up memories of the brutal murder of dozens of bus passengers whose bodies were found in mass graves in the neighboring state of Tamaulipas in April. A total of 193 bodies had been found in 26 graves, and officials say most of those were Mexican migrants heading to the United States who were kidnapped off buses and killed by the Zetas drug cartel.

But there appeared to be differences between Thursday's killings and the murders in Tamaulipas. In the Tamaulipas killings, the Zetas gunmen stopped and boarded buses and removed male passengers and killed them, either because they believed a rival gang was trying to send reinforcements into the region aboard buses or because they wanted to force some of the passengers to join their gang.

Thursday's attacks on buses may have been more random; the gunmen apparently just sprayed passing buses with gunfire. The buses hit were covering local routes in northern Veracruz, though authorities did not release the names of the bus lines operating the route. There was no immediate information on the identity of the dead bus passengers, or the four people killed in El Higo. The area has been the scene of bloody battles between the Zetas and their former allies, the Gulf cartel. The two gangs split in 2010.

Mexico bus attackers shot dead after killing spree23 December 2011 - Security forces in the Mexican state of Veracruz shot dead five gunmen who had attacked three buses, officials said.

The gang first shot four people in the town of El Higo before ambushing three buses and killing seven passengers. The killings came a day after the Veracruz government disbanded a police force elsewhere in the state to try to tackle corruption and improve security. The Navy has taken over policing duties in Veracruz-Boca del Rio municipality.

Local media described Thursday's shootings as a robbery spree. A spokeswoman for the state government said gunmen killed four people in El Higo in the north of the state. The attackers then stopped three buses on a highway, killing a total of seven people. In a subsequent shoot-out, security forces killed the five gunmen. Veracruz, on Mexico's eastern coast, has seen a rise in killings in recent months.

Much of the violence has been blamed on a battle for control of drug-trafficking routes between two of Mexico's most powerful drugs gangs - the Zetas and the Gulf Cartel. More than 40,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence in Mexico since December 2006, when Mr Calderon began deploying the military to fight the gangs.

LilOldLady say hang um high. Mexico needs our help ousting corrupt government like we ousted Saddam and Mexico is more of a threat them Iraq ever could be. Mexico actually have WMD. I say send the U.S. military in and invade and occupy and free the Mexican people and give them their country back so they can leave us the hell alone. Mexico should be a piece or cake compared to Al Qaeda and Taliban.

What a buncha animals!...Mexico bodies may be drug gang victims - police9 January 2012 - The bodies were found in the town of Zitacuaro, in Michoacan state

Police in Mexico say they have found 13 bodies piled up at a petrol station in the western state of Michoacan. They said the bodies of 10 adults and three youths showed signs of torture. Officials said threatening messages had been left next to the bodies, indicating that the killing may be a settling of scores between rival gangs.

Michoacan is at the centre of a violent battle between the La Familia cartel and a rival offshoot of the gang, which calls itself the Knights Templar. The bodies, all of them male, were found in the early hours of the morning at a petrol station in the town of Zitacuaro. Police said the victims had bullet wounds to their heads. Michoacan has seen a rise in violence blamed on the break-up of the area's powerful cartel, La Familia Michoacana.

Officials say the killing by the security forces in December 2010 of the gang's leader, Nazario Moreno, has severely weakened La Familia. But analysts say the Knights Templar, which split off from La Familia, has taken over many of the cartel's operations and now runs much of the methamphetamine production and trafficking in the west of Mexico.

Police find 5 severed heads in northern MexicoSunday, January 8, 2012 &#8212; Authorities in northern Mexico say police have found five severed human heads at several points around the city of Torreon accompanied by threatening message referring to drug gangs.

What are we going to do about the more than 2,000 illegal weapons shipped to Mexico? Indict the US Attorney General for gun running and accessory to manslaughter of hundreds of Mexican citizens and a US Border Patrol agent? Sounds reasonable to me.

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